The Lions offensive tweaking continued Friday, as they signed tackle Corey Hilliard to a two-year contract, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Hilliard was set to be an unrestricted free agent, and could compete for a starting job.

The Lions already cut guard Stephen Peterman, and right tackle Gosder Cherilus is a pending unrestricted free agent as well.

With first rounder Riley Reiff a starting-quality player without a starting job last year, and left tackle Jeff Backus 35 years old, the Lions are shaking things up. Center Dominic Raiola already took a major pay cut, and the moves likely aren’t finished.

The Lions offensive tweaking continued Friday, as they signed tackle Corey Hilliard to a two-year contract, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Hilliard was set to be an unrestricted free agent, and could compete for a starting job.

The Lions already cut guard Stephen Peterman, and right tackle Gosder Cherilus is a pending unrestricted free agent as well.

With first rounder Riley Reiff a starting-quality player without a starting job last year, and left tackle Jeff Backus 35 years old, the Lions are shaking things up. Center Dominic Raiola already took a major pay cut, and the moves likely aren’t finished.

_________________"Good teams don't worry about a whole lot of stuff. They travel, they play, they win. And it doesn't matter where they go, what the time block is, all those kinds of things. They never seem to bother teams that play well, and we want to be one of those teams." -Jim Caldwell

March 1st, 2013, 3:02 pm

DayDreamer

3rd Round Selection

Joined: December 18th, 2008, 9:18 amPosts: 1103Location: Where I lay my head is home

Re: Off-Season Moves

Flacco just agreed to a new deal, the numbers are not out yet but this should quicken the Stafford reneg.

March 1st, 2013, 7:49 pm

DayDreamer

3rd Round Selection

Joined: December 18th, 2008, 9:18 amPosts: 1103Location: Where I lay my head is home

Re: Off-Season Moves

Holy sh!t, Flacco's contract is 6 years 120 mill.....makes him the highest paid ever. I guess we can forget about Stafford's restructure now and focus on other ways of getting our cap under control.

March 2nd, 2013, 1:14 am

liontrax

#1 Overall Pick

Joined: March 21st, 2005, 2:11 pmPosts: 1432Location: Wolverine, Mi.

Re: Off-Season Moves

Buffalo tags Byrd. That could open the door for Lions to heavily pursue Levitre. This could be the most intelligent free agent addition Mayhew has ever made. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Holy sh!t, Flacco's contract is 6 years 120 mill.....makes him the highest paid ever. I guess we can forget about Stafford's restructure now and focus on other ways of getting our cap under control.

Flacco is something like 12-3 in the playoffs and has a super bowl win.

5000 yards in a season is nice. But, he is 0-1 in the playoffs. Winning the Super bowl is what gets a QB paid.

Stafford should get roughly half of what Flacco got until he starts to win playoff games. Right now Stafford = Matt Ryan. Really good QB in the regular season. Not so much in the playoffs. At least, until he proves otherwise.

We should sign him to a prove it contract. 2 added years to make it a 5 year deal ( I think he still has 3 years left on his rookie contract, right?).

Take what we owe him for the next 3 years and convert it to a Signing bonus. Set his base salary so that it plus the prorated portion of the signing bonus =$10 Million for the first 2 years and $15 Million for the last 3 years.

That would make it so that we get past the flat cap era and if he proves himself in the next 3 years, it should be easy enough to extend and rework his contract appropriately from there.

March 2nd, 2013, 11:49 am

LionsAllDay

National Champion

Joined: July 3rd, 2012, 2:06 amPosts: 876

Re: Off-Season Moves

liontrax wrote:

Buffalo tags Byrd. That could open the door for Lions to heavily pursue Levitre. This could be the most intelligent free agent addition Mayhew has ever made. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Damn. I really wanted to see Byrd-Delmas... How much do you think he'll get paid?

_________________

March 2nd, 2013, 11:57 am

DayDreamer

3rd Round Selection

Joined: December 18th, 2008, 9:18 amPosts: 1103Location: Where I lay my head is home

Re: Off-Season Moves

BillySims wrote:

DayDreamer wrote:

Holy sh!t, Flacco's contract is 6 years 120 mill.....makes him the highest paid ever. I guess we can forget about Stafford's restructure now and focus on other ways of getting our cap under control.

Flacco is something like 12-3 in the playoffs and has a super bowl win.

5000 yards in a season is nice. But, he is 0-1 in the playoffs. Winning the Super bowl is what gets a QB paid.

Stafford should get roughly half of what Flacco got until he starts to win playoff games. Right now Stafford = Matt Ryan. Really good QB in the regular season. Not so much in the playoffs. At least, until he proves otherwise.

We should sign him to a prove it contract. 2 added years to make it a 5 year deal ( I think he still has 3 years left on his rookie contract, right?).

Take what we owe him for the next 3 years and convert it to a Signing bonus. Set his base salary so that it plus the prorated portion of the signing bonus =$10 Million for the first 2 years and $15 Million for the last 3 years.

That would make it so that we get past the flat cap era and if he proves himself in the next 3 years, it should be easy enough to extend and rework his contract appropriately from there.

In an ideal world, yes, absolutely.

But, in the world we live in, Stafford's agent (the notorious Mr Condon) will not sign any form of extension unless its in the same ball park as Flacco's contract. The best we could hope for is moving money around in his current contract into performance based bonuses or increase his next year's numbers so the cap hit this year would go a little south.

March 2nd, 2013, 1:09 pm

kdsberman

League MVP

Joined: February 20th, 2007, 10:51 pmPosts: 3485Location: Saginaw, MI

Re: Off-Season Moves

Shotty wrote:

liontrax wrote:

Buffalo tags Byrd. That could open the door for Lions to heavily pursue Levitre. This could be the most intelligent free agent addition Mayhew has ever made. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Damn. I really wanted to see Byrd-Delmas... How much do you think he'll get paid?

I'd rather see Byrd instead of Delmas.

March 2nd, 2013, 1:18 pm

kdsberman

League MVP

Joined: February 20th, 2007, 10:51 pmPosts: 3485Location: Saginaw, MI

Re: Off-Season Moves

liontrax wrote:

Buffalo tags Byrd. That could open the door for Lions to heavily pursue Levitre. This could be the most intelligent free agent addition Mayhew has ever made. Keeping my fingers crossed.

You better cross them tight. I highly doubt mayhew will sign Levitre. It makes too much sense so why would be do it? Didn't want decastro why would be want Levitre?

March 2nd, 2013, 1:19 pm

sweetd20

Pro Bowl Player

Joined: October 13th, 2005, 9:03 amPosts: 2489

Re: Off-Season Moves

Stafford won't get Flacco money he just hasn't accomplished everything that Joe has in his career. Even if he does ink a similar deal he is young enough that the Lions can back load it with money he will never see if he doesn't pan out over the next four years or so. Stafford is all ready guaranteed $40 milllion so that has to be figured into the deal. Let's say he signs a six year $120 million dollar deal with a $45 million signing bonus and other bonuses that could net him a total of $65 milllion guaranteed. That would leave $55 million in base salary to split over the six years of the contract. They can put $30-40 million of that into the last two years of the contract. If they spread the $45 million of the signing bonus over the first five seasons that would be $9 million per season and to make things easier we will just say the other $20 million is simply roster bonuses spread over those same five years making it $13 million in guaranteed each season. So that leaves $15 million in base salaries to spread over four seasons. Depending how much they need or want to spend they can make this season the league minimum which I believe is around $700,000 for Stafford but again to make the numbers easier to work with I will say $750,000.

If Stafford continues to develop and improve those first four years will put him about where most of the top 10-15 QBs will be in terms of getting paid and they can extend him after that fourth year. If they aren't happy they can cut or trade him after year four and it would only cost them $9 million.

March 2nd, 2013, 2:14 pm

DayDreamer

3rd Round Selection

Joined: December 18th, 2008, 9:18 amPosts: 1103Location: Where I lay my head is home

Re: Off-Season Moves

Cowboys released Gerald Sensabaugh, does anyone know if he's a fit with the Lions?

I HATE the cowboys and avoid their games as much as possible, so never had a chance to watch him playing.

March 4th, 2013, 6:08 pm

wjb21ndtown

Re: Off-Season Moves

DayDreamer wrote:

Cowboys released Gerald Sensabaugh, does anyone know if he's a fit with the Lions?

I HATE the cowboys and avoid their games as much as possible, so never had a chance to watch him playing.

He's better than anyone we've got on the roster. Personally, I'd rather have the cheaper of he and Charles Rogers. A lot of people think that Charles is going to come with a high price-tag, but I disagree. He's washed up and everyone knows it, but he'd still be a great character guy, mentor, leader, and stop-gap for us here.

Last edited by wjb21ndtown on March 4th, 2013, 6:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

March 4th, 2013, 6:16 pm

LionsAllDay

National Champion

Joined: July 3rd, 2012, 2:06 amPosts: 876

Re: Off-Season Moves

Chiefs tag Brandon Albert. Literally impossible for them to draft Joeckel now since they already have a top 3 right tackle and it'll change all mock drafts. I think they trade down. I say Oakland throws a 2nd and 3rd at them to get the #1 pick.

Joined: December 18th, 2008, 9:18 amPosts: 1103Location: Where I lay my head is home

Re: Off-Season Moves

wjb21ndtown wrote:

DayDreamer wrote:

Cowboys released Gerald Sensabaugh, does anyone know if he's a fit with the Lions?

I HATE the cowboys and avoid their games as much as possible, so never had a chance to watch him playing.

He's better than anyone we've got on the roster. Personally, I'd rather have the cheaper of he and Charles Rogers. A lot of people think that Charles is going to come with a high price-tag, but I disagree. He's washed up and everyone knows it, but he'd still be a great character guy, mentor, leader, and stop-gap for us here.

Yeah, Sensabaugh's younger, so we don't need a replacement for him right away. But as you said, Rogers might come cheap and if we draft a S in the 3rd round or so, the rookie will have a solid mentor to get him ready for next season.